Vivek Ramaswamy Takes Nationalist Logic to Its Obvious, Horrifying Conclusion

By Noah Rothman

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

 

Nationalist Republicans who oppose the continued provision of aid and lethal arms to Ukraine sometimes argue that the West’s commitment to degrading Russia’s capacity to project power abroad comes at a steep cost. America is a strained, reeling great power, they argue, and every dollar devoted to European security is one that is not spent on the more acute threat to U.S. dominance posed by China. Millennial GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has made many of these now rote arguments, but he has done the public a service by taking the nationalist line to its logical conclusion.

 

“Xi Jinping should not mess with Taiwan,” Ramaswamy told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday. That is, “until we have achieved semiconductor independence,” the candidate continued, “until the end of my first term when I will lead us there.”

 

“After that,” Ramaswamy inadvisably added, “our commitments to Taiwan — our commitments to be willing to go to military conflict — will change after that, because that’s rationally in our self-interest. That is honest. That is true, and that is credible.”

 

He’s right about that. When an American president vacillates on his willingness to preserve the deterrent dynamics that make hostile foreign powers think twice about invading their neighbors, the world’s land-hungry despots stand up and take notice. Just ask Joe “minor incursion” Biden.

 

A purely libertarian conception of maximum economic efficiency would reject the market distortions necessary to repatriate critical defense-related industries back to American shores. Conservatives have traditionally been willing to absorb the economic inefficiency necessary to maintain a strong national defense. But the conceptually desirable effort to create a thriving domestic semiconductor industry has been complicated to the point of failure by this administration’s desire to pair that policy with populist immigration restrictions — a policy with which the populist right agrees. Perhaps the Taiwanese can breathe easier knowing we are so dedicated to self-sabotage that a potential President Ramaswamy will never be in a position to consign the Eastern Pacific to Chinese domination as he might like.

 

But his comments are revealing, too, of how Republicans inclined toward nationalist populism invoke the Chinese threat only to bludgeon conventional conservatives with it. The logic of reducing our dependence on foreign manufacturers of defense-related components is that their utility to us diminishes as our dependence is reduced. That message is conveyed as much to our allies as our adversaries. Necessary though it might be, repatriating those industries must be paired with a robust commitment to an indissoluble relationship with our partners abroad, lest those who covet their lands get the wrong idea.

 

To hear the nationalist right tell it, the only combatants in a fight between the U.S. and China will be the U.S. and China. That is, of course, nonsense. America’s regional partners will man the front lines of that conflict: the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and, yes, Taiwan. They aren’t going to gamble their sovereignty on weak-kneed Washingtonians. Alliance structure suggests they will seek their own accommodations with the aggressor in their neighborhood if they cannot balance against it by aligning with the great power on the other side of the Pacific. China would have a much easier time turning the South China and Philippine Seas into Chinese lakes and putting an end to the U.S.-backed global maritime-trade regime if America signals that its interests are as parochial as Ramaswamy suggests they should be.

 

Preserving that alliance structure is a complex task, but it would only become more so if America’s friends in the Pacific witnessed Washington throw its partners in Ukraine to the wolves. Preserving American hegemony means preserving its alliances, the breakdown of which would lead to the restoration of impenetrable spheres of influence. Those alliances are interconnected and interdependent. If a Republican president is willing to sacrifice one to expedience, perhaps he can be convinced or cajoled into giving up others. America’s near-peer competitors abroad would be foolish not to test that proposition.

 

Credit is due to Ramaswamy for articulating the logic of the nationalist position in ways more experienced and prudent political navigators have avoided. He said the quiet part out loud. It’s unlikely that China needed to hear the populist right’s logic spelled out in such unambiguous terms, but the populist right’s voters most certainly do.